Meet . . . Robert W. Amler, MD Chief Medical Officer Pediatrician and Epidemiologist

Robert W. Amler, MD is Chief Medical Officer at ATSDR, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, US Department of Health and Human Services, Atlanta, Georgia. He was apppointed to this position on October 28, 1996 by Dr. Barry L. Johnson, Assistant Surgeon General.

ATSDR is one of the eight agencies that constitute the Public Health Service. ATSDR's mission is to prevent or mitigate adverse human health effects as a consequence of exposure to hazardous substances in the environment. Dr. Amler is ATSDR's senior executive responsible for the Agency's response to the President's Executive Order on children's environmental health and safety by administering ATSDR's child health program. Dr. Amler is a medical authority on the adverse human health effects of environmental toxins, particularly for infants and children. He currently co-chairs a subcommittee of the federal Task Force appointed by the President to address this emerging priority. As ATSDR's chief physician, Dr. Amler monitors standards regarding matters of medical practices and ethics, evaluation of families and communities with toxic exposures, managed care, and special medical requirements of vulnerable or susceptible populations. In the early 1990s, he led ATSDR's development of medical tests to evaluate immune, neurobehavioral, and reproductive disorders in populations living near hazardous waste sites. In his previous assignments he investigated infectious disease outbreaks for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and was detailed to the Carter Presidential Center, where he analyzed and published the leading preventable causes of illness and death in the United States.

Dr. Amler is a licensed physician and actively practices ambulatory and emergency medicine in Atlanta. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College and Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, and received postgraduate specialty training at Bellevue Hospital-New York University, The Roosevelt Hospital, the Epidemic Intelligence Service, and the Preventive Medicine Residency at the CDC. He holds fellowships in the American College of Preventive Medicine and the American Academy of Pediatrics, where he is President of the Uniformed Services Chapter East. Dr. Amler is a Clinical Professor at Emory University School of Medicine and Adjunct Professor at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.

Dr. Amler and an assistant entertain inner-city children during blood testing for exposure to lead from a smelter.

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